Burro take part in 1989-2014 A Street Style Journey 5th-7th Dec at The Londonewcastle Space in Redchurch St. Curated by youth archivist Tory Turk to celebrate 25-years of  British streetwear brand Boxfresh.
The show documents styles and trends in youth and streetwear from 1989 until now and examines the organic nature of how wearers evolve a look from a mixture of sources and cultural influences. 
Burro designers Olaf and Su Parker were  also the original designers of Boxfresh, starting the brand with Roger Wade and Ben Joseph in 1989, initially customising American sportswear imported from the US. Su and Olaf left Boxfresh in 1994 to develop Burro.
Burro are showing pieces from our archive dating from around the time we split with Boxfresh in the early nineties the time of "acid jazz".......

“The term “Acid Jazz” first appeared sometime in the very late 80’s, coined by DJ Chris Bangs as a tongue in cheek play on “Acid House” which was the dominant club music at the time. The scene was a development of London's “Rare Groove” warehouse party scene from the mid 80’s adding hip hop, house, electronica, disco & Brazilian to the rare 60s and 70s funk, jazz and soul tunes. Our outfit reflects this mixture of styles and eras. People were wearing vintage stuff from the 60s and 70s (Gabicci cardigans, Farrah, Gucci Loafers, old Levi Sta-Prest etc.) with new pieces from shops like Duffer of St George, Mau Mau, Burro, Hyper Hyper, and Bond, mixing styles, genres and cultural references. What we now know as “the high street” had no input, influence or impact on men’s fashion at the time.”

Other exhibitors include Fiona Cartledge, Cass Pennant, Rhiannon Barry and the What We Wore Archive.

No Alla Violenza T shirts are available from our  online shop at www.burro.co.uk 

No Alla Violenza T shirts 2014

To coincide with World Cup Brazil 2014 we have have reissued two of our classic No Alla Violenza T shirts using the original art work we created in 1989 to promote a peaceful Italia 90. The designs Centre Spot and Big Ball are available on plain grey or white ringer T shirts, 
we are also producing the designs on grey sweats. They are currently only available from the Burro online shop  http://www.burro.co.uk/#/shop/4565560649 

Beware imitations there are a few rubbishy ones out there!

For more history on Burro and No Alla Violenza see our website http://www.burro.co.uk/#/no-alla-violenza/4545395340

Beware the Hawk!

Just lately we've been doing some work with the lovely Julie Hawk and her band. Julie is an Irish singer/songwriter now based in London who has come to some prominence on the North London open mic/folk scene (although to our mind the music she makes is much more interesting than the usual folky strummings).
Now operating as a band with bandmates Matt, Chris and Sam, she's been slowly building a following here and in her native Ireland. You can hear some of the band's music on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_hNyAVfJTZjsRArYhg3eqA
her facebook page has a link where you can buy an ep recorded last year https://www.facebook.com/JulieHawkMusic, we've heard some of their new material and it's fab. We've collaborated with the band on a couple of t-shirts which we're really pleased with.

They're only available at gigs at the moment but should be online soon...............................................

Whilst sheltering from the rain in a branch of Cos in the West End recently we were flicking idly through the A/W edition of Arena HOMME+. Imagine our surprise when on turning the pages of the magazine's 90's inspired shoot there was a full page shot of one of our classic and much copied "No Alla Violenza"t-shirts which the stylist had sourced from Contemporary Wardrobe. The design featured was one of three we first produced in 1989 but the ringer t-shirt in the shot was from a batch of Hanes "dead stock" t-shirts we found in a warehouse in the East End and printed up in early 1990, ah.... happy memories....!

This chance discovery has prompted us to re-issue some of our favourite archive t-shirt designs. We've started with two of the original No Alla Violenza prints from 1989 and our "I Hate The Beatles" from early 2001. We've printed up a small batch and they are currently on sale in our web shop. We'll be adding new designs occasionally so keep looking...

 Photographer Alasdair Mclellan

Roger Wade Entrepreneur

Roger hails from our old South East London stomping ground. We started ground breaking streetwear label Boxfresh with Roger and Ben Joseph in a council business centre in Deptford in the summer of 1990.

The following January we made our first foray into the international world of fashion with Roger when we drove to Paris through the snow with a collection strapped to the roof of his dad's car. Roger's plan was to use his charm and tenacity to hi-jack customers from one of the big trade shows, drag them to a hotel room and ply them with cheap red wine to get them place an order.

Roger's considerable business instinct was as apparent then as it is now, Boxfresh was sold to Pentland in 2005 and last Autumn he opened Boxpark in Shoreditch High St, a" pop up mall" made from shipping containers...... he used to go on about shipping containers in the early nineties we just did n't know why!

Here's Roger in the Brighton sunshine shot by Ivan Jones sporting Burro shirt and scarf from AW11.

Paul Burgess in Action

Paul Burgess is an old art school friend of ours back then we thought he was a bit Bowie-esque which can't be a bad thing. He is an illustrator, photographer, artist, lecturer, pop culture obsessive and co-author with Alan Parker of the acclaimed book Satellite: Sex Pistols a comprehensive record of Sex Pistols memorabilia. Paul is a bit of an expert on punk graphics and has a huge collection of them as well as clothing, tickets ,posters, original scraps of paper with lyrics on and so on which are complied in the book. The book also suggests a site seeing tour of key London locations in the Sex Pistols story.
More recently Paul has also spent six years photographing and filming Jarvis Cocker and Pulp one day he promises there will be a book and film at some point in the future.

Paul had an exhibition of paintings and collages in our Floral St shop in 1997. He is currently course leader for illustration at the University of Brighton.  

The other day he kindly posed in a box for that other Burro favourite Ivan Jones wearing our Action Time Vision intarsia jumper from AW02.